f4wfandomcom-20200214-history
Forum:Pro Wrestling didn't exist in the USA before the 1970's
This may sound insane, but I am convinced that professional wrestling didn't exist in the USA before the 1970s. We find no references to it in popular culture. It's only in the 70's that we start seeing references, and acknowledgement of pro wrestling in the USA. It is well-known that there used to be dozens of territories each with its own unique style of wrestling and presentation. In addition to the "official" territories, there were also dozens of "outlaw" promotions, again each with its own unique style and presentation. These multiple styles were known to co-exist, and what fans saw in New Jersey would be entirely different to what fans saw in Arkansas. In addition, many people still had black-and-white television into the early 90's, and many shows were produced, or at least recorded by their studios, in black-and-white into the 1980's. Many promotions has the same name or initials, eg. "NWA", "AWA", "UWF", or had very similar names or initials. As can be seen by matches involving wrestlers like 'Mighty Joe Thunder', what many people today automatically associate with, as an example the 1950's, were still commonplace, and on television in the early-to-mid 1980's. In addition, there were no universally recognized World Title lineages until the mid-1990's. In fact, the first attempt to form "titel lineages" occurs in the 1995 "PWI Almanac and Book of Facts". Even then, however, it is notable that: a)certain individual titles contain multiple champions holding the same belt at the same time. b)the lineages listed in the 1995 PWI Almanac are, in many cases, different to the lineages of those titles as believed today. c)Many people widely recognized as having held certain titles are not listed in those lineages. d)Multiple well-known titles, eg. the AWA Boston World Heavyweight Title, are completely absent. e)Many PWI title lineages only date back to 1980. And always 1980, not 1979, not 1981 etc. There are also multiple occasions in the 1980's(but never earlier?) of people recognized holding World Titles, but those people aren't recognized as such today. Do a quick Google search for people like Bruiser Brody, Buddy Landell'', '''Jerry Lawler and others holding the NWA World Title in the 1980's. Or search for Killer Kowalski as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Yet, none of those people are recognized as such today. Or Gorilla Monsoon referring to "The Model" Rick Martel as a former Intercontinental Champion, despite the fact that he officially never held that title. Or "official" title lists unsure whether or not Antonio Inoki was ever WWWF(or is that WWF?) World Heavyweight Champion; whether Pat O'Connor or Verne Gagne was the first AWA World Heavyweight Champion, whether Edouard Carpentier was ever the NWA World Heavyweight Champion:who the "first" "World Heavyweight Champion" was, the starting point of the "WCW World Heavyweight Title" etc. etc. Likewise, even through the 1990's, apparent independent promotions like the 90's NWA, Dale Gagnier's AWA Superstars, ECW, SMW and the USWA were treated as "World Title" promotions. Pro Wrestling Illustrated first appears in September 1979. The Observer first appears in the early 1980's Here's what actually happened: Sometime in the 1970's, after the success of ITV"s World of Sport in the United Kingdom, professional wrestling came to the USA. However, after early attempts at "World of Sport"-style wrestling wrestlers like Stanislaus Zbyszko Ed Lewis and Jim Londos only appealed to limited people, every city, town and county decided to create their own promotion. Thus flamboyant wrestlers appeared around New York City, more collegiate/olympic styles appeared in parts of the Midwest etc. The "World Wrestling Federation" and "World Wide Wrestling Federation" were two rival promotions that both operated out of the Northeast. There were at least 4 separate promotions called the "NWA", and at least 3 called the "AWA". Some promotions airing in smaller markets still aired in black-and-white. Copyrights were largely non-existent, thus people could use each other's belt designs. (This only became a legal issue in 1991, when WCW sued the WWF over usage of their Big Gold Belt). In fact, in the late 1980's the WCW Tag Team Title belts had the same design as the WWF World Title belt. The FIRST "World Heavyweight Champion" in the USA was WWF World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund in 1979. In fact, it was this that led directly to the founding of the PWI magazine. The first "Nature Boy" was Ric Flair, with Buddy rogers and Buddy Landell both following soon afterwards. Most viewers only watched professional wrestling in their own small territory, and were thus unaware of what was going on in the dozens of other promotions. Lou Thesz unified various titles in the early-to-mid 1980's, not the early-to-mid 1950's. The first major turning point came in 1983 with Starrcade, originally supposed to be a World Title unification match between two of the (at least) 4 "NWA" World Champions, Harley Race and Ric Flair. The massive expansion of Jim Crockett Promotions and the World Wrestling Federatuon from 1984 afterwards saw many of the smaller promotions start to fold, or be absorbed by either Crockett or McMahon. As later as the late 80's there were still at least 2 "NWA"'s, explaining how people like Lawler and Brody were recognized as "NWA World Heavyweight Champion" at the time, but are not listed as "NWA World Champions" today. The "World Wide Wrestling Federation" was swallowed up by their similarly-named rivals the "World Wrestling Federation" in 1987. By the early 1990's, there were essentially only two major professional wrestling promotions left, the WWF(McMahon's Stamford-based promotion), and the Atlanta-based WCW(owned by Ted Turner, who had bought out Crockett). Many people greatly resented McMahon, Crockett and Turner for killing off their various styles of professional; wrestling, and basically leaving only two. People like Lou Thesz were still wrestling into the early 1990s on independent shows. How is this possible if Thesz was a World Heavyweight Champion in the 1940s'? As noted, before 1995 there were no "title lineages", and even this 1995 attempt by PWI differs significantly from the title lineages we "know" today. And in many cases, these titles only go back to 1980. In addition, there are many ridiculous claims, such as Bruno Sammartino having a single reign from 1963 to 1971, or The Fabulous Moolah having a single reign from 1956 to 1984(!) In reality, these actual title reigns from c. 1979 to 1994 were projected back to 1905(!). In some cases, certain titles were joined together, such as placing the World Wide Wrestling Federation Champions before the World Wrestling Federation Champions, thus creating a single title. Numerous NWAs were likewise joined together, and the NWA said to have been formed in 1948, more than a dozen years before the W(W)WF, thus making the NWA "the oldest still existing World Title in the USA". The W(W)WF and WCW were both said to be mere offshoots of the NWA, as was the now-defunct AWA(which was likewise claimed to be older than either the W(W)WF or WCW). The WCW World Title lineage was claimed to have only started in 1991, when WCW simply recognized "NWA" World Champion Ric Flair as also being WCW world Champion. We must consider the time. 1995. There had recently been legal issues between WCW and the NWA, where while the NWA won legal rights to the name "NWA", WCW won the rights to the copyrights, such as belt design, PPV names, tape rights, and the lineage of the World Title. As such, PWI, still smarting over the rapid disappearance of multiple wrestling promotions, decided to make the NWA "the oldest still existing World Title promotion", and created the artificial lineages, which they then presented in their 1995 "Almanac and Book of Facts", which was published the very next year after the court decisions. PWI and the NWA also falsely claimed that professional wrestling had existed in the USA since the 19th century(almost back to the days of Abraham Lincoln!), and that there had been a form of "World Heavyweight Title" since 1905(!) They then fabricated "old-time" wrestlers like George Hackenshmidt and William Muldoon, printing black-and-white and sepia-colored photos of these men, who existed "before there was television". However, one only needs to look at these supposedly "over a century old" photos to see men who are clearly on anabolic steroids, thereby betraying the fact that they could not possibly have been taken in the 1890's-1910's as falsely claimed. These are juiced-up male models in the early and mid 1990's, NOT "professional wrestlers from the early 20th century". PWI then continued to insist that ECW was also a World Title promotion, and equal in position and visibility to WWF and WCW falsely speaking of a "big three", when it was really only a big two. Jim Ross was fired from WCW for following the false PWI/NWA title lineages and history on his commentary. In the 1990's some younger, clueless commentators such as Michael "Vintage" Cole were hired, people whose only knowledge comes from the PWI/NWA histories, and followed that company line. Other people who built on the false title lineages and history include: i)Jim Cornette. A fat, bad-tempered man from Kentucky, who hates both the Crockett/Turner and Mcmahon styles of professional wrestling, and has written many fictitious accounts of professional wrestling history, and his supposed "memories" of times that only ever existed in his own twisted imagination. 2)wrestling-titles.com. A website run by people whose favorite professional wrestling style is the Japanese "puroresu". They have arranged lineages of various titles that existed c. 1979-1991, and pushed them back into the past, often extending title lengths, so that title reigns that lasted weeks are now said to have lasted years. They have also created entirely fictitious wrestlers, and entirely fictitious promotions. However, they have been meticulous in managing to link together these fake title lineages "from the 19th century to the present", giving them an eerie sense of legitimacy and realism. 3)WCW(before going under): After the NWA claimed a lineage dating back to July 1948, sadly WCW, who actually had the legal rights to the title lineage, then started claiming that THEIR World Title dated back to July 1948. In reality, Orville Brown was World Heavyweight Champion in 1979-1980, NOT 1948-1949. 4)WWE: Eventually, the false title lineages became "universally known". WWE also liked the idea that their World Title predated WCW's by 28 years ("1963" as opposed to "1991"). So they recognized former WWWF World Champions as their own. This was why Bruno Sammartino was so reluctant for many years to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, as he had never actually wrestled there, and had been World Champion of their rival, New-York based promotion in the early and mid 1980's. However, with Stephanie McMahon-Levesque and Triple-H now running the promotion, and both only having entered professional wrestling after the PWI/NWA title lineages revisionism/fraud, the current WWE embraces and promotes the "lengthy history" of professional wrestling in the United States of America. 5)Idiot websites like Wikipedia, who get all their information from wrestling-titles.com and the NWA's website nwa-wrestling.com 6)TNA Wrestling originally used the NWA World Title from 2002-2007, and during this time promoted the false World Title lineage stretching back to 1948, and the "precursor" World Title to the NWA World Title, that allegedly stretches back to 1905. 7)The Death of WCW book claimed that the NWA World Title dates back to "the turn of the century". In fact, Reynolds and Alavarez were right. However, they didn't mean the fact that the current NWA World Title dates back only to 1994. They meant the false world title history dating back to "1905". 8)Every deluded, coked-out old-timer who falsely attributes their memories of watching Thesz, Sammartino, Brisco, Rogers, Gagne etc., which really happened in c. 1977-1991, but they remember as having watched these matches in the 50's, 60's or early 70's. 9)The Jesse Ventura biopic, which even adherents to the false title linage acknowledge has multiple inconsistencies and anachronisms. 10)Older wrestlers themselves. After years of abuse to their bodies(and not just through their matches), many of these men look decades older than they really are. If you're a 55-year-old man who looks 75-80, then simply say that you are 75-80, and push your entire career 25-30 years back in time! People who watch "old-time" professional wrestling supposedly from the 1950's or 1960's today are thus blissfully unaware that what they are actually watching is the smaller promotions of the mid-70's to early-90's, who were put out of business by either McMahon or Crockett/Turner. Occasionally an "oddity" appears when someone supposedly wrestling in the 50's does moves that are 'known' to not exist until the 1980's. Or alternatively a match widely recognized as having happened in the 1980's sees the wrestlers doing what are clearly "1950's" or "1960's" maneuvers. Every so-called "Dusty finish" World Title win was a real title change that was definitely recognized by the promotion in question at the time. Kowalski, Landell, Brody, Hayes etc. were all officially recognized as being "NWA World Heavyweight Champions". It's only the careful editing of the false title lineages by PWI and the new "NWA" in 1995 that saw these men having to be excised from the "1948-" title lineage, in order to make their deception internally consistent. The first professional wrestling promoter in the United States of America was Jim Crockett Jr. In the 1970's. His father was never a professional wrestling promoter. It was only the fact that his name had a "Junior" in it, and that his father met, and was liked by, many of the wrestlers, that resulted in the later fiction that Jim Sr. had been a promoter before his son. 'Superstar' Billy Graham, Hulk Hogan and Jesse 'The Body' Ventura all started at the same time. It is unclear who was the original. The NWA(Association), the NWA(Domed Globe), and NWA(Rogers) belts were all used simultaneously, as there were at least 4 separate "NWA"s all operating at the same time, all beginning from the late 1970's. Whenever wrestling television programs only survive as black-and-white recordings, they are automatically said to date from the 1950s(, and in some cases, the 1960's). 16:49, December 10, 2016 (UTC) Further to the above: 1)So Bruno Sammartino did wrestle for the "WWF". But early WrestleManias were, like early Starrcade''s', and the '''Super Clah events, events where wrestlers from multiple promotions appeared on the same card. It's only from WrestleMania IV onwards that WrestleMania becomes "just a WWF show". 2)It is also well-known that various old shows have had the commentary changed. As an example, WWE DVDs for a while had Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler doing new commentary for old matches. Ask yourself why this is. 17:26, December 10, 2016 (UTC)